Car and Driver“Right car, wrong decade.” Somebody should call the vet, because this is one very sick cash cow. The 2009 edition of the Ford F-150 comes in seven flavors, from the base XL to the top-dog Platinum model with a $44,860 price tag. Ford aimed at “rolling plushness,” and the F-150 delivers with improvements in nearly every area. But “will anything get pickup buyers back inside the tent?”

Motor TrendFord’s “Baskin-Robbins approach to truck building” may not help the company now that the economy’s on a crash diet. Seven trim packages, three types of grilles, three cab configurations, three bed boxes, and three engine choices translate into 60 possible packages. Just around the corner are EcoBoost (“a V6 with V8 power”) and a new diesel.